Bell Digest v940625p1

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X-RQ-ID: Intro

This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
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world of Glorantha.  It is sent out once per day in digest
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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Mr. Man Speaks
Message-ID: <9406241843.AA04134@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 24 Jun 94 06:43:32 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4807

MR. MAN SPEAKS

Note: Mr. Man was a trickster in my longest-running RQ campaign. He  
first met the party members when they had finally crossed the Mari  
Mountains and entered the Doraddi plains. After several blunders and  
false starts, Mr. Man called the PCs together, and made an  
informative speech, lecturing them severely and trying to explain a  
little about Pamaltela (to be specific, the Doraddi lands). It's best  
to let Mr. Man speak for himself, but I have included some  
annotations at the end. This speech is included (sans annotations) in  
the fabled Okamoto Campaign Log. 


	"Everyone sit down. I am going to speak and you must all  
listen. I am 65 years old and you must have respect for the elderly.  
This is going to be a long speech so everyone sit down.
	"My name is Mister Man. I have lived 15 years in  
Tradespot(1). I have lived many, many years, and I have one motto by  
which I live: 'Anything can be stolen.' I do not have to explain my  
motto to you.
	"I am not an idiot. I may be a trickster, but I do not  
worship Bolongo. I do not know why I have joined you(2). Maybe I  
shall never know. You say chaos is leaving my land to invade yours.  
At first I say, 'Good! If more chaos leaves my land, fewer chaos  
remains.' Then, I think, and I say, 'If there is now so much chaos in  
my land that we can afford to EXPORT it, I must look into this.'(3)
	"You come from far away. You have traveled to many, many  
lands. You think you are civilized people, knowing many wonderful  
things -- sorcery, metalworking, cities. But you do not know that all  
the lands you have been to are the same. You think, 'No, we do not  
think so. We know that the land of the Doraddi is different. All the  
places we have been are different. We are used to different places.  
This land is different, to, so it is the same.' You are wrong. This  
land is very, very different from the others you have been to. It is  
as if you had eaten many, many different kinds of fruit in your life,  
but only fruit. And then a man gives you a piece of good roast meat.  
That is how different my land is from the others you have been to.
	"You call me a trickster. You despise me in your hearts. You  
think, 'What a shallow fellow, only thinking of his stomach.' What  
else is there for an old man like me to think of? I say, Trickster  
sits on the council of the gods. (4) I say Trickster is the only  
reason the sun is now in the sky. I say MY god is important.
	"Of your country, so wonderful and civilized, I know much. I  
know more about your country than you do of mine. I know of your  
custom of blood feuds. When a man is killed, you do not mourn. You  
celebrate his death by killing more. And then more of your family is  
killed. And so on until everyone is dead. What a fine custom! (5)
	"If your king is old and senile or only five years old, you   
keep him on your throne. He is the King. So you have bad kings. (6)
	"What if you decide your king IS bad? You kill him and  
replace him with another king. Or if your king has friends, they try  
to kill you. Maybe everyone is killed. What if you kill your king and  
put his murderer on your throne. Then you have a criminal for a king.  
The criminals do not rule in my land. (7)
	"What if your king wants you to give him money? And you do  
not want to? (8) You call this taxes, and you pay it. Or else the  
king kills you or puts you in chains. I say that this sounds to me  
much like robbery. So your kings are robbers and murderers. What fine  
kings! What a fine land!
	"Your civilized land is overrun with chaos monsters and  
trolls. No? Tell me I am wrong and look me in the eyeballs.
	"If you gave me much, much beer and told me to imagine a land  
as bizarre and foolish as possible, I could not imagine a land as  
foolish as yours. And you do not even realize how foolish it is! We  
will all be quiet now and think about it for a minute. Think!"
	[And he sat, thinking, for about five minutes.]
	"In my land we do not have cities. So you think in your  
hearts, 'What a savage land. What poor benighted people. I am glad I  
come from a land where we have cities, and metal, and sorcery, and  
Tap spells, and assassins, and taxes, and robbers and murderers to be  
king.' Maybe you say it differently than I do. But you do not know  
anything about my land. Do you know that my land once had many, many  
cities? Big cities. Cities on the seashore. Cities with big roads,  
and sorcerers, and taxes. Better cities even than yours are now. We  
called that land the Artmali Empire. And did you know that in the  
last age we had another civilization. With many, many cities, and  
with sorcerers, and taxes, and big roads.(8) We called that  
civilization the Ill Empire, (9) but its founders called it  
differently. Why do you think we do not have cities now? Because we  
have forgotten how to make them? Because we never knew how to make  
them? NO!! Because we DO remember how to make cities. That is why we  
do not have them. We had cities. We know that cities did not make us  
happy. We were not healthier. We did not have better clothing. We  
could not eat more food than we can now. What you do not understand  
is that we had cities, and we decided we were better off without  
them. So do not despise me for being an ignorant savage.
	"You come to our land arrogant. You do not even bother to  
learn our language well. One of you does not bother to learn our  
language at all. (10) You do not bother to find the least thing about  
our land. You have never heard of the Meeting Contest. EVERY TIME two  
bands of our people meet for the first time, we have a Meeting  
Contest. And other times, too. And you had not even heard of it. (11)  
If I went to your land and had never heard of cities, would you not  
think me ignorant?
	"So. Here you are. Knowing little, and that little is false.  
Who will help you? How will you find your way around? How will you  
find your goal? Let me tell you. You will have to rely on the  
despised tricksters. Me ... .and Mugumma. (12) If you kill one  
trickster, you lose all of us. Could you trust us after such a deed?  
(13) So no more talk about killing. Another proof of your superior  
civilzation -- I heard you talk seriously about killing one of your  
comrades because he played an annoying trick on a person you wished  
to speak to. Do you really think that murdering one of your own  
friends will earn you more respect than Mugumma's and the duck's  
juvenile tricks? No one in the oasis (14) would even speak to you  
after such a foul deed. 

	"Now. To business. I trust you are all suitably humbled. I  
saw how you divided up the money when the troll (15) had much metal  
and you all desired it. I thought, 'At last, the foreigners show  
sense! If someone else had metal to which he was not entitled, I,  
too, would desire it.' But then YOU DIVIDED UP THE METAL EVENLY! Are  
you all equal? What a foolish notion. (16)
	"You need a leader. I suspect that even outsiders are not as  
foolish as you. I think that until recently, you had a leader, and  
something happened to him. (17) Now you need a new leader. Pick one.  
In our land, leaders must belong to the proper family (18), that way  
they are trained from birth to be good leaders. So. Are any of you  
trained to be a good leader? I am not. Mugumma is not. The sorcerer  
is not, I know, because I know much about sorcerers. The dwarfs are  
not, because only dwarfs that are not leaders can come above ground.  
Who is left? The duck? The troll? I think not. Let us think about it  
in a minute. (19)
	"But we have something else to speak about. What is your  
goal? You must have a plan. You say, "We want to talk to the gray  
ones.' (20) Well, you did. And you received remarkably unsatisfying  
answers, no? So now what? Do you lack a plan? Yes? Let us make one.  
And while we make one, let me explain why I think the duck and the  
troll would make poor leaders, though possibly good advisors. I am  
prejudiced. I think that non-humans do not think in the same way as  
humans do. Have you not found it so? So a non-human leader will often  
lead you in illogical ways, for a human. And this will lead you to  
more problems. Such as the money. I say you need a human for the  
leader. I say, even a bad leader is better than no leader. So. Pick a  
bad leader. (21)"

ANNOTATIONS
1) an oasis just south of the Mari mountains, where venturesome  
caravans from Laskal and other northern parts of Pamaltela traded  
with the Doraddi.
2) This was the first the party knew of Mr. Man's plans to join up!
3) The PCs originally came to Pamaltela because of reports of  
monstrous chaos ships traveling north to Genertela. 

4) True in both Theyalan and Doraddi myth.
5) Blood feuds are, obviously, not a Doraddi custom. 

6) Here Mr. Man mocks the principle of hereditary monarchs. 

7) Amongst the Doraddi, if a chieftain is deemed incompetent, he is  
quietly removed from office, and a new one appointed. 

8) Doraddi chieftains are supported by their own labors and by  
voluntary contributions. "Taxes" are foreign to the Doraddi, and they  
associate it with the Fonritian slave-farmers. The Kresh do ritually  
exact gifts from their subject Doraddi, but this is claimed to not be  
true taxation, because they give items of worth in exchange. The  
Arbennan Confederation argues otherwise.
8) Yes I know I had two #8s. Tough. Anyway, note the emphasis Mr. Man  
places on roads as one of the Bad Things of civilization. This is a  
Doraddi opinion. Roads are seen as restraints and evils. Signs of  
oppression, much as castles and forts are viewed elsewhere. 

9) A.k.a. the Six-Legged Empire.
10) needling a particular party member who'd been too busy training  
up his other skills to learn Arbennan.
11) The Meeting Contest is practically universal on the Pamaltelan  
plains. From Tarien to Zamokil, it is known and performed between  
Agimori. However, variations occur in places.  

12) Mugumma is a Doraddi party member who'd recently become a  
trickster. He was relatively ignorant of some Doraddi customs since  
he'd been a slave in the Mari mountains from a fairly early age.
13) Typical Doraddi reasoning -- note how Mr. Man  places the  
emphasis on a murder's moral effects upon the killer, rather than the  
crime itself! If the PCs were to kill a person, then the bad result  
he describes is NOT the death of their victim (though that is, of  
course, bad, too), but the fact that from then on the PCs could never  
be safe around their victim's friends or family. 

14) Tradespot
15) a PC
16) The Doraddi are not an egalitarian people, though they believe in  
freedom, kindness, and generosity. 

17) A perceptive jab -- the party's leader, Harmast Nightblade, had  
recently retired to rule Qualyorni Pass in the Mari Mountains. I  
mentioned this as one of my most seminal RPG experiences ever in a  
recent Daily. 

18) The right lineage, of course. Mr. Man knows the different between  
one's lineage and one's family, but is simplifying matters for the  
ignorant outsiders. 

19) This was probably the most cosmopolitan party we ever had in the  
whole campaign, and that I've ever gamemastered for. Within a few  
months on the Jolar plains, the party was once more fairly stable,  
through attrition and retirement. 

20) spirit entities the party had been seeking for since Genertela. 

21) And they did. 


That's enough for now. 


Sandy

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From: bchugg@leland.stanford.edu (Barron Chugg)
Subject: Damsels and Deities
Message-ID: <199406240819.BAA13284@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 23 Jun 94 16:36:57 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4796

Hello all,

In the June 24th Daily, Jonas Wrote (quoting me):
>
>>Imagine a person's progression in a cult as a heroquest of sorts.
>
>Other have suggested (or even ranted about) similar conceptions, but to me
>it devalues the whole idea of HQing.  What you're saying does remind me a
>good deal of the introduction to the RQ2 rulebook. The kind of 'mundane
>HeroQuest' you want is what the term "RuneQuest" should cover.

  I don't think it devalues the concept of HQing so much as it plays up the
magic-realistic aspect of Glorantha.  Reading various people on the mindset
of historic cultures I get the impression that they viewed everyday life in
a very mystical manner.  Illnesses were spirits, great deeds were done on
the very lands the tribes lived on, your ancestors watched over your daily
life, etc.  So I look at this idea as just an extension of peoples'
beliefs.  Now, I doubt that many (in fact, few) Gloranthans think of thinks
in the cold, clinical terms I used in my initial posting.  To them the Gods
are more present and active.

  Anyway, since I got this post at home I was able to reach behind me and
read the RQ2 intro.  I'm more than willing to accept the term "Runequest"
for the "everyday" HQing I am talking about.  (Perhaps the GLs RuneQuest
Sight allowed them to see the casual connections to the Hero Plane...)

>
>>I like the idea that these are an
>>aspect of the internal guilt of the offender.
>
>Why, thank you. :-)
>

  Funny, when I first read the idea of guilt inspired SoRs I didn't like it
much (didn't fit my RQ2 ideals, I guess).  But when I started thinking
about the RuneQuest idea (as it is now known) it fit beautifully.  So,
thanks for bringing it up/creating it.


MOB:

>"Marm! Yes, Marm!"
>
>This is just like in the oft-times irritatingly politically correct Star 
>Trek:TNG where all the admirals lately seem to be women, though there are 
>damn female captains out there doing the Picard heroic stuff*  
>

  Wow, am I jealous of that analogy!  Perfecto!  Where's the tough, James
Cameron women heroes?


>From: jiml@falcon.teleride.on.ca (Jim Lai)

>How about this: By becoming more like their god/dess in action, the initiate
>becomes more like them in capability.  Paths laid down on the Hero Plane make
>for easy walking down the path.  Of course, one can HQ to make one's own
>path, but unless one later becomes deified and worshipped, newly gained
>powers can vanish, right?  The deity doesn't have to lift a finger, as the
>path has already been laid down.  The reason that lawful god/desses can be
>fooled is that they cannot read minds yet they follow through on their
>(self-imposed) obligations.  (Entanglements?)

  Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind.  This way the deity is passive
(honoring the Compromise), but their aspects are active.  That is to say,
the god does not directly guide the follower, only that to succeed the
follower must walk the "right" path (or be very sneaky/self-decieving).  

  As for the establishment of hero cults and diefication, I think the key
would be laying down the followable (that is to say, non-ephemeral) path
for others.  Like Dormal's ritual, or the blessings of saints.  An
individual can seek power in the Hero Plane, but unless others can emulate
them, they'll never have a cult.

>
>|This is the crux of my idea: that runemagic comes from within.
>
>Er, what consequences would this have for the sacred utuma ritual?  :)
>

  Uggh.  Mongo no understand.  What you mean?  Ughh.

>|Since this is becoming rather long, I'll just hit a few more ideas.  The
>|first is tha of spirits of reprisal.  I like the idea that these are an
>|aspect of the internal guilt of the offender.
>
>They're also culturally-based spirits, as they take form from the beliefs of
>the group, not the individual.  As we all know, spirits founded in a group
>are more capable than those of the individuals singly.
>

  Oh, this opens a whole 'nother can of worms.  Can belief create reality
in Glorantha?  Does the true power rest with the individual's beliefs, or
the culture's mores?  I kind of opt for the individual myself.

>The Hero Plane isn't really all that distant, now that I come to
>think of it...

  Sums my ideas up to a tee.


Barron