Bell Digest v940812p4

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, Fri, 12 Aug 1994, part 4
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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 11 Aug 1994
Message-ID: <9408111756.AA09540@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 11 Aug 94 05:56:05 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5630

Klaus mentions:
>We have a butterfly in this country that lives 2 years as an imago,  
>it is the citronsommerfugl (means lemon butterfly) Gonepteryx rhamni  
>of the pieridae family. The 17 year cicada lives 17 years, but who  
>wants an underground grub for a familliar? The queens of certain  
>spieces of ants live even longer. Such a "hive familliar" would not  
>be very mobile.
	You have a pierid that lives two years? Wow.  
(Non-entomologists -- the dirt-common Cabbage Butterfly; the white or  
yellow things that are EVERYWHERE -- is a pierid. Doesn't last two  
years, tho.) If you want a long-lived arthropod companion, tarantulas  
normally live up to 25 years or longer. Male ones only live 9-10  
years though, or even less for some species. Termite queens live  
longer than ant queens, and fifty+ year old termite queens are known.  
In any case, a multitude of short life-spans are covered by one or  
both of the following two rules:
	1) a beast transformed into a familiar has a different  
lifespan than usual (presumably longer).
	2) if the beastie dies, you can simply re-summon the ally (if  
you're a priest) into another beastie of the same species. If you're  
a sorcerer, you're best following my current familiar rules, under  
which lost stats return to the sorcerer after his familiar is killed  
(with some delay). That way you can re-invest them in a new familiar.

>Acording to Dorastor, you do get a POW gain roll for winning
>a spirit combat (page 27).
	The usual rules are that you only get the POW gain roll if  
one of the rolls during the conflict was at 50-50 or worse odds.

>How does your friendly parish wizard ever get a POW gain roll?
	What does he need one for? A priest needs POW gains in order  
to keep getting new spells. A shaman needs POW gains to keep his  
fetch growing. A wizard only needs to study his spells and practice  
them to keep improving. This takes time, not POW. 

	Once a wizard's POW has reached a reasonable level, he only  
needs new POW if he wants to make magic items. I fully expect wizards  
to generally have the highest POW of the three types of magician, and  
suspect that POWs of 21 are not all that uncommon among these folk. 

	But in any case, if the wizard leads services for the  
Invisible God, I'd give him a POW gain roll every Sacred Time.

Nils Weinander asks:
>What did Shang Hsa [May-His-Name-Be-Cursed] do to become so hated?
	He burnt the books. 


Jim Lai:
>GoG wasn't clear on the nature of the Tortured Dead.  Did they find  
>peace once Godunya ascended the throne, or are they still wandering  
>the world?
	Some may have been rounded up by the Hungry Exarch (one of  
Godunya's minions), some may have wandered off to Bliss in Ignorance,  
but some are still haunting houses and the like. There is an illegal  
Cannibal Cult in Kralorela who devotes its efforts to satisfying the  
Tortured Dead by providing them with human sacrifices. 


> I'm skeptic towards deified city founders unless they are  
>dragon-type figures.
	I think that Kralori city gods are never humans. Remember  
that their cities pretty much all date from the Golden Age, and were  
probably founded by giant sentient oak trees, the Golden Turtle, or  
things of that ilk. 


>The Ernalda cult chapter in the Glorantha section of the RQ3 rule  
>books say that Ernalda was one of the deities who followed Yelm up  
>from hell at the dawn.
	Well, yeah, but she's still sort of underground, too. I mean,  
look around, you don't SEE her, right? Obviously she's lost some  
touch with the upper world. But at least she's not DEAD anymore  
(except during the winter), and she can answer prayers and bring  
plants back to life in the spring. 


re: nobles appointing new wizards and warriors:
Ian Gorlick says:
> this should lead to the wizards campaigning first for the right to  
>appoint minor orders with the approval of the talars.  Then once the  
>talars are just rubber-stamping appointments, after all they don't  
>really understand the requirements of the offices, the clergy will  
>slowly develop the right to make the appointments without the 

>talar's approval
	Yes this can happen, especially if the nobles are inbred  
morons (which no doubt they have been at times). In Medieval Europe,  
secular leaders (like the King of France) carefully kept the right to  
appoint bishoprics and the like, because he saw it as a source of  
power and as a means to keep the clergy loyal to him. I don't think  
that most Rokari nobles are any dumber than the real-world kings and  
leaders. I predict that minor orders won't be the province of the  
Kings, but that lesser nobles will keep their prerogatives, thus  
limiting the might of the wizards. 

	It's still a delicate balance, between the treachery of the  
wizards and the cleverness of the lords, but it should work for many  
generations at a time in between periods of cataclysm. 

	Note that the exeunt of the Serpent Kings may have been just  
such a changeover.

Paul Reilly posts a lot of sensible things about the Lords' ability  
to maintain themselves. 

	Note that when peasants revolted, as in the Fronde, or the  
Jacquerie, or when there was serious religious turmoil, as with the  
Huguenots or the Albigensians, the rebellious side ALWAYS chose  
nobles as their leaders. The Fronde's generals and leaders were all  
nobles. The Jacquerie had sort of "captive" nobles, who were actually  
forced to lead them in battle(!) The Huguenots not only had nobles of  
their own faith, but also found champions amongst good Catholic  
nobles who joined their side (but not their faith) seeking political  
advantage. My own ancestors were among these opportunistic Catholic  
turncoats, and were kicked out of France for their troubles. *sigh*  
It would have been much more noble if they had been ousted because  
they were Huguenots, oppressed for their religion. But being booted  
because you choose the wrong side ...
	I see no reason that the wizards, warriors, and farmers of  
the Malkioni would be any different. If the wizards or warriors were  
dissatisfied with the current ruling class, they might rebel, but you  
bet their leaders would be disgruntled nobles, promising the wizards  
a better deal than the current administration. And maybe raising some  
of the wizards or warriors to noble status. And maybe not. 


Colin Watson
>words fail me when I try to express my hatred of the idea of
>optimised CA's churning out Resurrections as fast as they can pray.
	Yes, well that's what the new version of the Divine spell  
regaining rules is meant to fix.

David Cheng:
Runequest-Con Compendium.
	*sob* I wasn't included in the list of free-copy parasites. 


David Cordes
>Exactly which US Prairies are you finding this 2-3m grass?
	In MOB's defense, I have seen plots of "native prairie" in  
the midwest which I was told during the height of summer and fall had  
grass well over six-feet tall. (I was there in the spring, and it  
wasn't nearly so high.) I've spent some time around South Dakota and  
Wyoming myself, and you're right about the grass there not being  
superhigh. I envision Prax as looking much like Wyoming, with the  
Wastes looking a lot like the Great Basin. 


Peter the bastard Metcalfe:
>I suspect this has a lot to do with my winning the debates in the  
>private postings about human wave tactics we've been sending to
>each other
	WHAT?! I won those debates hands down! I can't believe you'd  
say that in front of the entire Daily with your bare face hangin out!

> It surprises me that Sandy says [Jraktal] is still worshipped in  
>Fonrit as >I thought it was a chaos diety and not worshipped anymore
	Technically, Jraktal's not chaotic, in the same way that  
Malia's not chaotic. I don't think anyone but chaos beings worship  
Jraktal outside of Fonrit, and inside Fonrit, it's considered cruel  
to worship Jraktal even by slavemasters. 


>This makes at least 70% slaves whereas the proportion of blues is  
>25% and mulatoes another 15%.  Yet Artmal is the god of slaves  
>whereas this implies that to be an initiate of artmal you would have  
>to be blueskinned.
	Pretty much ALL the blues are slaves. I'm not sure if all the  
Artmali are required to be blueskinned or not. In any case, not all  
slaves worship Artmal. He can be the God of Slaves anyway.

Peter?
>> IMO, the God of the Fonritians in the First Age was Lodril who is
>> noted in pamaltelean myths as having ruled this land.
Joerg:
>The Fonrit description makes it clear that the blue-skinned natives 

>worshipped Artmal and his court, although fallen from power. The 

>Agimori invaders came early in the Second Age, and they introduced  
>the terrible gods of supression, like Ompalam.
	And Jraktal. Probably Ikadz, too. The Agimori who conquered  
Fonrit do not seem to have retained much of the original Doraddi  
culture, and they probably didn't think of Lodril as the creator  
anymore. 


I said:
>>The Only Old One is an office, not a person. 

Joerg, shaken, responds:
>Are you sure? You're blasting a number of fine theories about both  
>the OOO and the Pharaoh.
	Sorry. But think of all the NEW amazing theories that you'll  
be able to come up with. The OOO being an office comes from a private  
conversation with Greg on the subject during the writing of Trollpak.
	Note that the OOO being an office may only apply to the First  
Age, though I personally doubt it. I don't think that the wielder of  
the office inherits his predecessors' memories, because that makes  
him too much like the Red Emperor and the Pharaoh. 







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