Bell Digest v940907p1

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, 07 Sep 1994, part 1
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk

X-RQ-ID: Intro

This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's 
world of Glorantha.  It is sent out once per day in digest
format.

More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
after the last message in this digest.

X-RQ-ID: out.going/rq-daily/index

6074:CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty) - The Blue Wizard vents his spleen...
6075:JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK - Dendara & Yelm
6076:CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty) - ...about gods unseen...
6077:CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty) - ...and Joerg.
6078:SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 726-2172) - blue moon over mernita
6079:sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen) - Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 02 Sep 1994
6080:jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se (Jonas Schiott) - Myths and Islands and Quests.
6081:cookec@max.mml.mmc.com (Chris Cooke) - New Deluxe Edition
6082:GBailey@aol.com - thanks on Kallyr; Vinga
6083:LANGSL@cbr.hhcs.gov.au - Unsub
6084:DCOWLING@UTMEM1.UTMEM.EDU - Questions

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

From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
Subject: Dendara & Yelm
Message-ID: <9409061251.AA27975@Sun.COM>
Date: 6 Sep 94 12:53:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6075


Nick: Dendara obidently follows Yelm's path.

Right On!
To be precise she follows just behind Yelm (dutifully) and slightly lower.  
After all everyone knows that women, even those as good as Dendara cannot 
aspire to such lofty heights.  GLs thought it might be possible to see 
Dendara by careful positioning of sight blocks (it is rumoured that a 
number of them were blinded while getting the positioning right).  

On another GL note could the darkness after the Sun Stop be caused by 
Dendara (unable to halt so suddenly) overshooting Yelm and Eclipsing his 
Glory.  The effect of these female influences will have naturally had a 
deleterious effect on mankind.  

Pedentite Marcellus of Alkoth


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

From: CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty)
Subject: ...about gods unseen...
Message-ID: <01HGT9AO6VEAFGVYV5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 7 Sep 94 13:08:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6076

David Hall Writes
=================

>Shargash/Entekos/Antirinausia:

>I hesitate to say this, but does anyone else out there find all of this 
>endless analysis and investigation of the Glorious ReAscent obscure, 
>over-complex, over-blown and completely irrelevant! It all fails to 
>interest, excite or inspire me. How can any of this waffle help me GM or 
>play the damn game? 

It's just one aspect of the Gloranthan hobby.  If Greg didn't want the meanings
of the GRAY and other misleading texts to be debated over by Pedants then he
would have made the facts clear...

>>[My views on why I think Elmal, Antirius and Yelmalio are one elucidated].  
>>To me, this smacks of concious God Learnerism.

>It is actually precisely the opposite! This is one of the many complex ways 
>that myths evolve and change through time.  The Elmali are discovering 
>"lost" aspects of their deity. 

Which was what I was arguing.

>Whether this is true or not doesn't really 
>matter: what matters is what they believe. 

So if I believe that Yelmalio didn't really loses his fire powers at the hills
of Gold, I can use Fireblade?  To me this is simplistic.  What also matters is
what the enemy believes about the god and what actually happened to the God
himself.

I must come out into the open and state my belief that at 0 ST, the gods were
frozen by the web.  All the myths that we have of a particular god are the 
totality of the god himself.  In extremely rare cases the myth can be extended
into time by concious heroquesting of a colossal magnitude (Orlanth and
Arangorf dancing together in KoS obviously describes the Cult of Orlanth
Dragonfriend).  Other types of cult changes can be either of two mechanisms. 
Either the heroquester finds an event of what the god did that was previously
unknown and adds the spell to the cults lexicon or he borrows a tool from a
similar diety or invents a power in which case he becomes the focus of a
subcult.  An example of this latter would be the spell 'seek Sun Dome' taught by
Monrogh?

>In this case some of them have 
>looked at the lowland sun god and decided that he must be linked to their 
>own sun god (seems very plausible to me). Then either through comparison of 
>similar myths and/or comparitive heroquesting they have "proved" that their 
>sun god is a son of Yelm called Yelmalio. 

And if Elmal was not Yelmalio, would some bad side effects have happened?  The
God Learners switched two earth goddesses around and no fruit grew in one place
and no marriage survived in the other.  Also the Elmali dispute took place
within the third age which was when this sort of thing was detested.

>Glorantha isn't a world based on science where things can be proved right 
>or wrong - where there is one true way. It is a world of shifting myth and 
>beliefs. It is a place where, if enough people believe in something, then 
>it becomes the truth for them and creates its own reality. 

I do not accept this.  The Gods were, the gods are.  They have made themselves
a permanent part of glorantha.  What mortals in glorantha can only do is
comprehend a fraction of the god (like the buddhist parable of the six blind
men and the elephant).  This was the basis behind my suggestion that the Solar
Orb was too powerful to be worshipped directly and all the sun cults we have
are only crude approximations.  

>The fun aspect of Glorantha is when two belief systems clash - as in the 
>case of the Elmali. It was the lowland sun worshippers versus the highland 
>storm. Whose beliefs were more relevant? To many Elmali it was the 
>lowlander's beliefs that offered more to them in their everyday lives - and 
>so they converted. 

This could be done without invoking the principle of 'a god in every peasants
pot every sunday'.  The greeks in their hellenistic expansion phase syncretized
a lot of what they saw (for the religions of asia minor there was little
problem) but struck severe problems with the jews as told in the books of the
Macabees (sp?)

Transferring this example to Glorantha, An Orlanthi warlord encounters a
malkioni land and conquers it.  He sees the parallels and reasons that this god
they worship is the King of all and Orlanth is the King of Gods so Orlanth is
this God.  He substitutes the worship of the Invisible God for Orlanth ('well
Orlanths invisble, ain't he, so it must be him!').  He orders the wizards of
that land to alter the spell of worship invisible god to worship orlanth and
borrows other malkioni traditons.  Do you think that this would be successful? 

(Yes, I know about the cult of the invisble orlanth, but that is a myth in
carmania of how Orlanth defeated the creator and was enlightened, not the
identification of Orlanth with the invisible god)

>Note: The comment in King of Sartar is obviously by a Sartarite writer who 
>is maliciously ascribing to the Yelmalions selfish and grasping motives for 
>their actions. Their real motives might have been far purer. Perhaps the 
>Elmali clans were being discriminated against by the Orlanthi clans who 
>were denying them important clan and tribal positions?  

Good point.  However if Elmal was not Yelmalio/Antirius/Paininthearseus, they 
were still trying to do was substitute a foreign god and the Sartarite could 
have easily made the charge of 'God Learnerism' which he doesn't.

I'm sorry if this has been somewhat pedantic but I feel obliged to explain
myself when people invoke my name.  I am trying to wean myself of this habit.

--Peter Metcalfe

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

From: SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 726-2172)
Subject: blue moon over mernita
Message-ID: <01HGSDE24KO6RUMW0F@MR.MGH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: 6 Sep 94 04:11:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6078

          Hi all--
          
          Just getting back into the daily after the long holiday weekend 
          here, I have not yet had time to assimilate the assorted comments 
          by Joerg, Peter the Blue Wizard, and Nick on the gods of Dara 
          Happa.
          
          I did note David Hall's comment regarding the discussion though.  
          If others find it to be a complex mind-numbing, soul-zapping spell 
          devised by hideous Godlearners, I'll be happy to take the 
          discussion offline.
          
          I might note that sometimes interesting game-related ideas can come 
          out of these discussions through this forum.  As one example, 
          Joerg, I think, mentioned that the ancient city of Mernita was 
          crushed by Sedenya, the false sun, who may also be the blue moon.  
          If this is the case (or even if its not), then some good Dara 
          Happans or magic-seeking Lunars may make this connection, too.  So 
          what better than to launch a true solar punitive expedition against 
          those miserable digijelm to restore the glory of lost Mernita?  Or 
          the grand lunar hunt for the heart of Sedenya, said to contain a 
          secret fire that even trolls have not extinguished?  Or an Ice Sea 
          fisher returns from an expedition with an unusual carved stone, 
          Dara Happan in origin, but depicting a ritual now unknown?
          
          In warning, I will probably produce one more posting on the daily 
          on the topic of Dara Happan/Pelorian mythos as I consolidate the 
          assorted responses from the weekend.  If consensus is to take it 
          offline after that, I will do so.
          
          --Harald



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

From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 02 Sep 1994
Message-ID: <9409061652.AA13310@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 6 Sep 94 04:52:18 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6079

>> Herd men... slow down your herd to a comparitive crawl.
Paul Reilly:
>In a sprint, yes.  I'm not sure about miles per day.
	But any plains tribe must be highly concerned about speed  
when under threat of broo or animal nomad raider. Hence, the herd men  
are a clear detriment to the herd of an impala or high llama group. 


>I think that herd men may be less gruesome to eat than Sandy  
>apparently does, also. 

	Like I've argued before, I believe that most Praxians avoid  
eating herd men. I won't go back into my arguments here.  


>Remember that herd men have been selectively bred, and probably are  
>bigger, have more stamina, and give more milk than their distant  
>human cousins.
	Strong disagreement here. Sorry. Humans are the worst  
imaginable subjects for selective breeding. 1) they tend to form pair  
bonds. 2) they take more than a decade to reach breeding age. 3) they  
normally give a single birth.
	Natural selection's already done its part to make humans as  
efficient as possible. Herd men don't have more stamina because  
humans have been "bred" to have as much stamina as possible. 


>as Sandy points out, the herd men can fight
	This is true. Of course, in an open battle, a herd man vs.  
bison isn't much of a contest. But if the morocanth have a reasonably  
defensive position, herd man can hurl down rocks or defend  
barricades, which bison are inept at doing. 


Martin Crim:
>Sandy mentioned the historical facts from Western warfare, though a  
>better analogy would be Mongol hordes or Plains Indians 

	The Mongols were 1/3 lancers. Plains Indians also carried  
lances, clubs, etc. But the plains indians also had to fight  
opponents who used firearms, so they couldn't utilize the lance  
properly against them. Hence, they went over almost entirely to the  
bow and rifle. If you look at the armament of Amerinds before they  
encountered the white man, they used plenty of melee weapons. 


John Strauss:
>A central mythical theme of the Waha tribes states that the  
>Morokanth are in the SAME subsistance niche as humans. If a
>human can eat it, so can a Morokanth and vice versa. 

	We know that the various tribes of Prax fill different  
ecological niches (which is why they don't exterminate each other).  
The Morocanth are only doing the same. Their herd men allows them to  
go places and do things impossible to the other tribes. Their own  
body form helps out, too. 

	That said, I don't think the Morocanth are immune to any of  
the diseases, and no doubt they suffer from them, especially given  
their marsh proclivities. 


>Does anyone know if the *herds* can subsist in those marshes? Is  
>there fodder suitable for herdmen or bison?
	Marshes are highly productive, ecologically. There's heaps of  
food in 'em. Not only animal life, but plant life, too. However, I  
don't think that the bison, impalas, etc. can take advantage of it,  
because they're desert creatures. I would predict that they get  
bogged down in such swampy terrain. Plus they can't dig up the  
cattail roots and such. 

	Herd men, on the other hand, do just fine in moist terrain.  
They can dig, swim, catch frogs, etc

Martin:
>Gigantism is common on islands. 

	So is dwarfism. Even MORE common, in fact. 


>Thieves' Guilds. This phrase always causes me to scream.  Lhankmar  
>is a bizarre, ancient place, where even the thieves are organized.   
>Elsewhere, use of the word "guild" could only be ironic
	Hear, hear! 


Alex:
>Great Elk are something _completely_ different, aren't they?
	Great Elk, usually termed "Irish Elk" for mysterious reasons,  
were smaller than the moose in the body, but with much larger,  
palmate, antlers. Like the moose, they probably only rarely fought  
over females by pounding their heads together, but mainly relied on  
impressing the females with their love calls and huge antlers. 

	Wapiti, who have effective fighting antlers (much better than  
moose), actually fight over the females, and the winner takes all.  
Among moose, the females pretty much select their own mates and have  
a lot more say in the matter. On this basis, I predict that the Aleci  
(moosehsunchen) are more female-dominated and less feisty than the  
Pralori. 

 

Martin
>does the Lunar aspect of Trickster have a specific name?
	Er. "The Red Goddess"? Or how about "Orlanth"?

>The best-known example of island gigantism is probably the tortoises
>of the Galapagos Islands.
	During the last Ice Age, there was a dwarf species of mammoth  
on Malta. The calves were no bigger than a cat. Island dwarfism is at  
least as common as island gigantism. The truth might just be that  
islands have a smaller number of colonist species to fill all the  
niches available, so whatever animals happen to be present change to  
fit in. The Hawaiian Islands apparently originated with only a few  
insects, so fruit flies (for instance) have evolved into over 2000  
different species there, about as many as the rest of the world  
combined, filling niches taken elsewhere by other types of flies,  
hymenopterans, etc. 


 

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

From: jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se (Jonas Schiott)
Subject: Myths and Islands and Quests.
Message-ID: <9409061606.AA03377@vinga.hum.gu.se>
Date: 6 Sep 94 20:06:04 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6080

Alex in yesterday's daily:

>Joerg on Vinga, and some cultic pot-shots of his own:
>> With the myths, I always want a 
>> one true version for myself, and a malleable basic set to adapt for all 
>> the local variations.
>
>What practicable difference is there between the "true" myths and the others?
>If it makes a difference, why would anyone go for the false ones?  If it
>doesn't, why do you need to know?

Dunno what Joerg needs to know, but I have to admit that I too sometimes
feel a strange yearning for the 'real story'. Is this just an inability to
deal with a fluid and changing world-picture? Maybe, but I think the main
reason is technical. When describing the differences between the local
variations, it's useful to have a sort of neutral blueprint, a standard of
measurement to apply. What will such a blueprint look like in practice? I
guess it would be a colorless, flavorless, not very exciting collection of
stories and attributes that would define 'the basic Orlanth', for example.
Even if there is a great deal of regional variation, there have to be some
sort of minimum requirements for what constitutes a cult of .
I know that a lot of people will cry out against this sort of
'standardization', but I think that if we're going to discuss Glorantha on
any scale but the extremely local, we need it. Otherwise we'll be reduced
to describing one little community each, with deities and myths unknown
anywhere else in the world. Which to me defeats the purpose of gaming in
Glorantha.
I've got a few more things to say on this subject, but I'll wait for the
flames to descend first...


>> As to Vinga's identity: If you try to apply linguistics
>
>She's a lighthouse?

I've been wondering about that... Do you think Greg's ever seen a map of
Sweden (or even more unlikely, heard the song (and had it translated))?


>Curtis Shenton suggests:
>>       A worshipper sacrifices POW into a pool of Rune Power that they
>> can draw upon later. But the only spells they can cast are those they
>> have earned through various minihero quests. For example for an Orlanthi
>> to get Darkwalk they need to steal something from a Kygor Liter
>> worshipper.
>
>This is rather like what Henk suggested, I think.  I certainly agree with
>the HQ component, though I saw it as being more of a ritual one.

It sounds a lot like Barron's "runepath" ideas to me, though I don't think
he ever got that specific about _how_ the questing should be done. Hey,
Chugg! You still out there, man?

(      Jonas Schiott                                   )
(      Institutionen for Ide- och lardomshistoria      )
(      Goteborgs Universitet                           )


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

From: cookec@max.mml.mmc.com (Chris Cooke)
Subject: New Deluxe Edition
Message-ID: <9409062049.AA29247@Sun.COM>
Date: 6 Sep 94 20:43:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6081

My players asked me to take a general poll.

Are there any other people who have bought the new Deluxe Edition RQ3 book
and had a problem with pages falling out?

My group has bought 7 copies, 5 have pages out and one has loose pages(the
owner is VERY carful - NOW).  The owner of the 7th, I've lost touch with.

How common is this?
--

                />        Chris Cooke 
               //       
       (//////[O]>====================================-
               \\      
                \>      cookec@mml.mmc.com  

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

From: GBailey@aol.com
Subject: thanks on Kallyr; Vinga
Message-ID: <9409061803.tn410615@aol.com>
Date: 6 Sep 94 22:03:03 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6082

Thanks to all who gave information on Kallyr Starbrow.   She's seems a little
stubborn and bossy, hmmm, good qualities for a leader (and NPC)  :)   
   Speaking of Vinga, I was about to ask if a cult write-up existed.   Can
someone send me the original post about Vinga that several have replied to?
 I just re-subscribed a few days ago.

Glen


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

From: LANGSL@cbr.hhcs.gov.au
Subject: Unsub
Message-ID: <009841B2.034BC0A0.18906@hhcs.gov.au>
Date: 7 Sep 94 18:22:07 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6083


                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                      Date:  Sent on: 07-Sep-1994 08:22am
                                      From:  Alistair Langsford
                                             LANGSFORD ALISTAIR
                                      Dept:  Information Services
                                      Tel No:289 7870

TO:  Remote Addressee                     ( _runequest@glorantha.holland.sun.com )


Subject: Unsub

    unsub list langsl@cbr.hhcs.gov.au


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

From: DCOWLING@UTMEM1.UTMEM.EDU
Subject: Questions
Message-ID: <01HGT1N8U63M9TDREY@UTMEM1.UTMEM.EDU>
Date: 6 Sep 94 15:37:19 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6084

Ok, here are some basic questions, and I hope the simplicity of them does not 
offend anyone's _Detailed Gloranthan Lore Skill_

When a PC finds a magical item(say a Demoralize matrix) how does he know what 
it is, and how does he discover how to make it funtion?  With something like a 
light matrix(where the focus would be the object itself) I can see where just 
giving it MP would make it work, but what about when there has to be a target?? 
These things are not really discussed in RQ3, and I would like some 
clarification.

Also, in Apple Lane's Rainbow Mounds there live(d) a creature known as The 
Great Mother Lizard.  In the RQ3 module, killing here imparted 2AP in all 
locations to the beings standing in proximity to here when she died.  After 
dishing out this _reward_, an older RQ player told me that this is a chaotic 
taint, and would detect as so by the appropriate spells.  Your comments?

One last thing... with the adventure series found in The River of Cradles, 
there is mention of the Cleansed One subcult of Zola Fel, and the trials this 
broo went through to remove his taint.  I have a PC wanting to run an orge 
through this, but I don't even think Zola Fel would rescue him from drowning in 
the openning of this adventure.  If so, what wold be required of him to purge 
himself of chaos(if he even wants to  >:) )  Thanks for reading a newbee post.