Bell Digest v940616p2

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, 16 Jun 1994, part 2
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
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Precedence: junk


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From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 15 Jun 1994, part 5
Message-ID: <01HDKY3K6JSM93CRE7@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 16 Jun 94 04:58:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4593

G'day Everyone!

I've got glazen eyes from spending about 24 out of the last 36 hours writing
the Lonely Lozenge Guide to Sog for How the West was One!  All done now!

Now I have nearly a dozen RQ Dailies to wade through, wow!

Festivals:  John Hughes does it again!  What an amazing piece.

Nasty Sorcerous Masters:  Sandy, I laughed out loud at your contribution.
Anyone else had any bad ones?

Here's one from me that I was holding in reserve, but is quite similar,
plus another one...

3. The Drooling Magus of Nochet:
...who after creating his cat familar became a dribbling idiot after 
inadvertently gifting it with too much of his INT.  Now, the familiar is 
off to see the world, and his apprentices are left to care for a mental 
vegetable...

and 

4.Lady Magus Vivian Morte, St Chalana's Hospital, Perfe:
...whose apprentices draw lots for the honour of being the next 
corpse upon which she forlornly makes another attempt to sorcerously 
duplicate the Resurrect spell. 


and of course, there's always Zzabur, who never taught any of his
apprentices Skin of Life!

Cheers

MOB

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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Slackers, Hrestoli, and other riff-raff.
Message-ID: <9406150903.AA21695@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Jun 94 09:03:04 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4594


Sandy:
> IMO, most Gloranthan slackers _belong_ to the local cult. 

  Yay.  Let's hear it for Gloranthan Slackers,
long may they continue to -- well, slack, I suppose.

> And I believe that the Storm Bull is one of the more  
> dedicated cults of Glorantha.

Absolutely.  After all, they are effectively social outcasts, have a
monomaniac cultic Purpose, and best of all, get to add their Hate Chaos
passion onto their attack %age when berserk.  A recipe for (relative)
fanaticism.  But I agree with all that Sandy says about there being _lots_
who aren't really all that Full of Bull, as the berserks themselves put
it.  "Will the Storm Bull _really_ rescue my soul if that oozing chaos
horror eats me?"  

> Alex, re Loskalmi land ownership:
> >The Lord having more rights to it than the peasant, in fact.   
> >Effectively, the guys you're describing sound like tenant farmers  
> >with some legal or customary protection.
> 	Yep. Still plenty of room for abuse here, but at least it's  
> better than having _no_ protection. 

Yeah.  Are we still getting hung up on how "good" or otherwise this
makes the Loskalmi?  Or is it how we decide the Loskalmi should be, now
we've decided they're the Good Guys?  I always get confused by that one...

> >I'd be surprised if the West had female clerics or rulers; it took  
> >the Church of England several centuries to manage the former.
> 	Two points. First, Glorantha, even in the more  
> female-repressive areas, is generally more egalistic in this regard  
> than most Earthly cultures.

I have to say the "sample" Westerner in G:G3 doesn't really bear this out.
Of course, he's an Evil Rokari, and possibly he's an MCP, even by their
standards.  I don't think the Hrestoli, or indeed the Rokari, deliberately
_repress_ their women; they just tend to regard them as afterthoughts, if
at all.  "In order to be the Complete Man, one must experience All of Life."
"Lord Bishop, what about being the Complete Woman?"  "Are you drunk, man?
Aren't the deacons putting enough water in the Blood of Hrestol these days?"

> Second, having female magicians is not the same as having female clerics.

I'm afraid it pretty much is, if it's only proper to use magic in the
context of worship of the Invisible God, the standard Western line.  Now
patently, some Wizards actually have fairly secular roles to carry out in
practice, but the "priestly" role is their whole raison d'etre.  What's
the point in being a Wizard if you can't Wiz?

> They might permit female  
> magic-users while not allowing them to officiate at ceremonies  
> (because Hrestol or Malkion was a man, or some such nonsense). 

Reason enough to preclude them from the whole class, I bet.  Not to mention
that it'd have a woman outranking, _in her own right_, mind you, 99% of
the male population.  As for a female Talar, get back to me on this
immediately after the World's Greatest Democracy elects a woman president.
(No, you can't count Billary as a half. )

> >> 	But I'm still not convinced that the Rokari women have but a 
> >> single class. Arguments one way or the other?
> >Arguments that it's a moot point, as it essentially is with the  
> >Brithini?
> 	Well, the Brithini don't necessarily even _live_ together on  
> a normal basis.

True.  I was making the more general point that the Brithini for all intents
and purposes have four female classes, so the argument is somewhat academic.

> > The sun that fell to the Earth was the only one that was in  
> > the sky.
> >In Pamaltela? Everywhere? Why did it fall?
> 	It was killed by Orlanth.

Aren't you trying to have your Monomyth and beat up on it, Sandy?  Orlanth
killed Yelm everywhere, but in some places it was before the entrance of
chaos, and other places it was after?  Possible, but _weird_.

> Eurmal is known and worshiped along the Pamaltelan coast,  
> where he is called "The Catsup Slob". He may not be known by the same  
> name of "Eurmal", but he's the same entity that is worshiped at the  
> temple of "Where Did You Get That Sword, Eurmal? Put It Down At  
> Once!" known to now exist in everyone's campaign somewhere in Sartar. 

He is?  How can we tell?  And why is Eurmal "credited" for the Jelmre,
which are pretty much an Interior phenomenon?

> >They could release some chaos on them. 
> 	What? The crimson bat? What would happen in the border areas  
> if they knew the Bat was gone for the next few years.

Much Rejoicing?  A spate of "Ralios" jokes?

> If the Lunars could  
> just "convert" the Telmori like that, why don't the Orlanthi Ralians  
> just "convert" the Carmanians and use them against the Lunars?0

They just did, didn't they?  (Invisible Orlanth, a Plot of the Henotheist
Church, if ever there was one.)

Alex.

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

From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Sun Dragons, etc.
Message-ID: <9406150956.AA22388@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Jun 94 09:56:16 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4595


Nils Weinander:
> swj@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr S.W. Jones) in daily June 08:
> >	On a final note I have a unofficial write-up of the Donander
> >cult (it needed one) if anyones interested - or I can pop it on the Digest.
> I would like to see it on the Daily.

There's also another "unofficial" writeup in Read Pheasant Throughout, btw.
I'd be interested in seeing S.W.'s, though...

> That's a thought. The Kralorelans drove the trolls out of Ignorance, they
> went north, pressing the Pentans westward etc.

A cultural Domino Theory? ;-)

> I have similar names for the other Sky deities: Dayzatar
> is Tien Long, the celestial dragon, Polaris is Shing Long, the star
> dragon etc. I might be dead wrong giving the sky gods draconic
> identities, but until convinced that this is so I kind of like the
> idea.

I'm sure most Genertelans would tell you so, but the Kralori might well
believe this, just to spite them all. ;-)  After all, they see these
entities less as objects of worship, as cosmological entities who are part
of the mythic "backdrop".

Alex.

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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Time, Gents.
Message-ID: <9406151002.AA22443@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Jun 94 10:02:50 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4596


Graeme Lindsell:
> Alex writes about Time:
> >On the other hand, was 0ST the "Real" start of Time?

>  What is Time itself? No one seems to have a clear grasp of what it is,
> except it means "God can't pay personal visits any more".

Indeed, that is an entirely pertinent question.

> The period
> called the Godtime seems to be causal ie there's no myths about the event
> preceeding the cause. 

But that could be just timist interpretation.  Sandy suggests that in
Genertela, the Sun fell, then chaos invaded, while in Pamaltela, choas
invaded, causing the sun to fall.  These _could_ be two different causal
glosses on acasual, timeless, events.

Nor does causality as such mean that Before Time had precisely the kind
of metric time that exists later.

>  What did happen at 0 ST was that the sun rose.

Maybe.  Some myths seem to be more on the lines of getting a "different"
or "improved" sun.  Or for the Dara Happans, several such, successively.

>  The rising of the Sun would appear to be one of the "Days the Magic
> Changed", but it doesn't seem to have that huge an effect on the Dara
> Happans 200+ years later.

I must admit, I was struck by their nonchalence about it.  But then, they
had things like falling dynasties, starvation in the streets, and barbarian
invasions to occupy them.

> It probably isn't coincidental that Malkion
> reappeared to Hrestol so soon afterwards, though (released from Hell
> with the rest of the gods? Do the Theyalans have Malkion there as part
> of the compromise?)

I doubt it, if only because the Malkioni don't have themselves as part of
it, or anything analagous.

>  Time may be entirely a God Learner concept. The GL's could have decided
> that it was too dangerous to HQ into the period after the sun rose for
> some reason (and then no doubt promptly broke that rule).

I agree that 0ST+ as Time seems like a Theyalan/God Learner stitch-up.  But
clearly, only so much of what happened 0ST- can be "history", or at least
"true history"m for evident reasons.  This implies that there is something
different about the Godtime, since there are (at least now) several different,
"true" myths which can be HQ'd back to.

> >Does Time for the DHans start a few thousand years earlier?

>  Do they have a concept of Time as opposed to time? To them, the withdrawal
> of the gods is due to the corruption of the earth world, isn't it?

For Dayzatar, yes.  And to some extent, for Yelm.  But these days, you can't
even shake hands with Lodril.  What gives?  Note, at least, that the
Yelmic "First Era" is Timeless.  The chronology for the Second Age is
fairly laughable, too.  Perhaps the coming of time, and strict causality,
is a gradual (and local?) process, subject to some fudge and variation.

> >HQing back to the Dawn Age, even if it were possible, wouldn't put you in 
> >the "mundane" First Age world (at least in the first instance)

>  But in the second instance? To exit in another time you'd have to leave
> the heroquest path you started on and then join or create another.

Or some such, yes.  But Arachne Solara isn't going to like it.  If possible,
standard time-travel nonsense results.

>  Bronze AGE, not bronze. Or should I start ignoring all those introductory
> parts of the Glorantha:Genertela pack that talk about how young all the
> Gloranthan cultures are, and how many modern concepts should not be applied
> to them?

No, but you should take "Bronze Age" with a tablespoon of NaCl.  Culturally
and otherwise, most of Glorantha is Iron Age+.

>  If the "they, too" refers to current Earth technology, our ability to
> destroy the world is far less than theirs.

It is?  Doing it in Glorantha appears to require Sustained Stupidity, such
as a continentful of God Learners, or all of Peloria either trying to destroy
Orlanth, or sitting on their hands.  As to the extent of the possible
destruction, I hope not to find out, in either world.

Alex.

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From: pyspas@midge.bath.ac.uk (Paul Snow)
Subject: Interconnectedness
Message-ID: 
Date: 15 Jun 94 12:08:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4597

Does being illuminated give you are greter or lesser understanding of the 
importance of Arachne Solara?

Paul Snow

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From: SYS_RSH%PV0A@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com (Official Heat Sink)
Subject: Perverts?
Message-ID: <01HDKAYLK43M8Y7E13@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com>
Date: 15 Jun 94 02:52:05 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4598

>Mind you, in Broo society, I
>suspect the latter is considered Perverted.

Broos?  Considering a sexual practice perverted???  Isn't that a bit 
like Popes Against Christ?  ;)


--Scott

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From: SYS_RSH%PV0A@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com (Official Heat Sink)
Subject: boring gods
Message-ID: <01HDKBJ4IK6Q8Y6S5F@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com>
Date: 15 Jun 94 03:08:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4599

>like I said, the Compromise made the Gods somewhat impotent,
>predictable and... well... boring

But only *somewhat* impotent, Colin.  Granted, the compromise really 
cramped the gods' style, but that doesn't mean that the gods don't 
know who their friends/worshippers/patsies are.  I think that even if 
a non-priest of Babeester Gor knew the appropriate rituals he still 
wouldn't get Axe Trance.  Admittedly, Babs may not be able to 
personally track the desecrator down herself (and possibly won't even 
be able to give her avengers clear directions to his house), but I 
don't believe that everything she does is merely a knee-jerk reaction 
to a ritual.  I think the gods are fully capable of withholding 
spells from naughty or apostate worshippers if they wish to.

--Scott

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From: SYS_RSH%PV0A@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com (Official Heat Sink)
Subject: Female gods with sharp knives
Message-ID: <01HDKC8Y1TXU8Y7RGF@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com>
Date: 15 Jun 94 03:28:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4600

>>Vinga castrated Eurmal

>Must all Orlanthi warrior women be castraters?

No, but I'd expect castration to be somehow significant where Eurmal 
is involved.  Ever hear the song "Detachable Penis?"  It's like a day 
in the life of a trickster god....


--scott

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From: jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se (Jonas Schiott)
Subject: Re: Eurmal the Assassin?
Message-ID: <9406151344.AA16557@vinga.hum.gu.se>
Date: 15 Jun 94 17:44:15 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4601

Alex, replying to Joerg:

>> Eurmal eating all the baby Raccoons fairly fits this bill, doesn't it?
>
>Not really: this is Eating, not Murder, though I'm sure this seemed a slim
>distinction to said raccoonlets.

_Flying_ Raccoons, if I recall correctly..

>There may not be a published/existing
>Murderer type myth, but there's no reason why some enterprising soul can't
>make one up.  

Who, me? :-)

Alex on Peter's Weasel/Hueymakt legend:

> A Trickster Murderer myth.
>;-)  Prospective worshippers are accordingly referred to Duck Valley.

Let's see... The standard myth has Eurmal giving Death to Humakt, who then
uses it on Gramps Mortal, right? Now, this is obviously the way _Humakti_
tell it. But Peter's version is much more logical: _Eurmal_ is the first to
use Death, Humakt was just an onlooker. But Eurmal didn't feel like being
the God of Death (besides, he already had more runes than he knew what to
do with), and Humakt seemed like a good choice for carrying it instead (a
Young God looking for a gimmick to make a name for himself). So, voila:
Eurmal the Murderer.

Of course, my attitude towards Humakt might have something to do with this.
It is mainly due to arguments from my good friend Sten, who says things
remarkably similar to what Sandy attributes to Greg. Seems like the Humakt
cult is a natural for minimaxers, wherever they are...


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

From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Re: Faith, Hope, and Glorantha.
Message-ID: <9406151352.AA20932@pelican.csd.abdn.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Jun 94 14:52:45 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4602

Alex (replying to Devin):
>All that we actually
>know to be required to get Axe Trance is that one be a Babs Initiate (or a
>suitable initiate), and that the local temple go for the idea.  That She's
>sitting around in the GP personally vetting each application in detail is
>just One Man's Opinion.

Yes, but I think it's worthwhile for a GM to have a definite opinion on
this, one way or the other. Ok, the characters might not have a clue; but
for the sake of consistency it would help if the GM decided. Obviously
a world where the Gods have direct control over who gets to worship them
would be *very* different from one where the Gods are bound against such
intervention.

In Devin's world the Gods get to judge the "worthiness" of all requests made of
them. That's fine. It makes for a consistent setting; and I'm not surprised
if worshippers in that world are extremely devout.

I would take the opposite view. I think the fact that the GodLearners managed
to manipulate religions so successfully (up to a point) is evidence in favour
of this. (But I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.) Did the gods *want*
to be exploited?

___
CW.

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From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried)
Subject: hold it
Message-ID: 
Date: 15 Jun 94 16:21:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4604

Henk,

A question:
Can you suspend my RQDaily subscription from now until August 1?  I will be
away, and the pile-up of Dailies might make my server mad.....

If not, cancel me, and I will resume myself when I get back.

Thanks,

-- Greg Fried
f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu

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From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney)
Subject: Why Vinga's number mechanics are the same as Orlanth's:
Message-ID: <9406151749.AA23777@sonata.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 94 07:49:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4605



The reason that I stated that Vinga's mechanics from a gaming perspective
were identical to Orlanth Adventerous's is that I would rather run a world
than number crunch and rules legislate.  Thus, I made the myth of Vinga
FIRST and let any rules nonsense follow.  Heaven help me were I to decide to
do the whole thing ass-backwards and do rules first and myth second.  
(Just about the dumbest way to do it, no?)

I might kick around some alternative spells, I might not.

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

From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney)
Subject: Vinga again
Message-ID: <9406151815.AA23949@sonata.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 94 08:15:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4606


>>If you don't want to post a great honking amount of stuff on Sartar to the
>>daily, you could always upload it to the archive (soda.berkeley.edu).

>Spoken like a true Internet user. Not all Digest subscribers have Internet
>access; I'd rather see dribs and drabs posted each day for a month than
>know that it sits inaccessible somewhere.


There are mail-servers for FTP, you know...


>Bryan also posted a Vinga myth. While I appreciate seeing more about Vinga,
>and it had some nice elements, I found it troubling.

>>Orlanth laughed at her

>This from the god of the culture where 15% practice non-gender roles? I
>much prefer Nick's version of Orlanth, allowing Yinkin to herd even when he
>knew he'd fail.

So Orlanth can behave in a contradictory manner.  Is this unthinkable?  
Remember, we already have a great precedent for Orlanth acting impulsively
and regretting it later (killing Yelm).  Why is it not possible for Orlanth
to allow his brother to try things but not take his sister/daughter seriously?
I've seen this happen enough in human society.  Also, just because 15% practice
"non-gender roles" (no such thing, by the way, you mean "roles not assigned
to their gender") doesn't mean that Orlanth can't have made a mistake about
this possibility at least once, does it?  Remember, Orlanth repented of his
folly and felt shame at rejecting Vinga from her true role.  Thus, this 
myth could also be a cautionary tale warning "mainstream" gender-roled
Orlanthi against scorning those who would walk the "other path", couldn't it?
Orlanth laughed at Vinga, but he was later ashamed of his laughter.


>>Vinga castrated Eurmal

>Must all Orlanthi warrior women be castraters? It makes sense for Babeester
>Gor (who's an anti-fertility goddess), but do women warriors have to be
>nasty? Besides, Eurmal shows no effects of this important mythical event.

Firstoff, she castrated EURMAL!  Thus Vinga is not a castrator, because
whatever you do to Eurmal doesn't count!  I have a sack of Vinga myths that
show her other side (The Laughing Lady is one of her other names).  I'll 
post one Friday or Saturday.  Briefly put, in my campaign, Vinga is the
patroness of warrior women, but she's also the mythic sister of "girls who
wanna have fun".  The castration is also there because Vinga is also called
Sharptongued Vinga in some stories.  For the sake of decency, I didn't give
details as to HOW Eurmal lost his bits.  (Of course, only Eurmali stories
give that detail, anyway.  Vingans just say that she "removed" it or "cut
it off".)  Furthermore, she gave it back when she got hold of Death.  This
is why Eurmal shows no long-term effects.  Anyway, Eurmal is constanly
misplacing body parts, I'm sure that Vinga is only one of several goddesses
who've had his tenders separate from his body.  Vinga's worshippers are
expected to be able to toss out serious zingers when men get offensive, you
know, the sort of stuff that just deflates testosterone-laden "gifts to 
women".  This is a social form of "castration".  Example:

Drunken Yokel:  "Hey, Red, what would you say to a little fuck?"
Vingan:  (Sweet, sweet smile) "Goodbye, little fuck."

Crowd in bar dissolves in laughter.

EXTREMELY Drunken Yokel:  "Hey, Darkness Chick, what would you say to a
     little fuck?"
Babeester Gori:  (Drawing axe) "DIE!  DIE!  DIE!"

Crowd scatters as hapless yokel is dismembered and killed.


Also, all warriors are "nasty" in the sense that they are all really just
professional killers.



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

From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney)
Subject: Heroquests
Message-ID: <9406151818.AA23964@sonata.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 94 08:18:10 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4607


Arachne Solara:  She eats heroquesters for lunch, breakfast, and elevenses,
but if they're cute enough, she adopts one or two as pets, like Cragspider.

Quitting Heroquesting:  Practice heroquests, probably quittable.  Real
down-n-dirty heroquests, about as easy to "quit" as "quitting" manual
control of a nuclear pile (and you're sitting on top of it).