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, Sat, 01 Oct 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: index 6419: alex = (Alex Ferguson) - Westerners, Westerners, everywhere... 6420: niwe = (Nils Weinander) - Secrets once more & some more 6421: alex = (Alex Ferguson) - Sandian Stuff. 6422: alex = (Alex Ferguson) - Other, non-Sandian Stuff. 6423: watson = (Colin Watson) - Body, spirit; spirit, body - jus'likethat 6424: SMITHH = (Harald Smith 617 724-9843) - rhigos; eldarad 6425: DevinC = DevinC@aol.com - Re:Women Templars, Eldarad, Sartarite Fauna 6426: gerakkag = gerakkag@imap1.asu.edu - Non-Divine Ressurrection 6427: joe = (Joerg Baumgartner) - Sandy agrees on Pamalt and others 6428: 100102.3001 = (Peter J. Whitelaw) - Lord Vega Goldbreath? --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Westerners, Westerners, everywhere... Message-ID: <9409300916.AA17692@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 30 Sep 94 09:16:39 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6419 de MOB: > I think Martin has hit the nail right on the head when he suggests the > Porthomekans are descendants of Westerners. Beejeezis. At the last count, I made it that Maniria had the Wenelian Rokari, the Trader Princes, the Aeolians, and now this lot stomping around in it. Aren't we about to hit Westerner Critical Mass, or something equally nasty? > The Capratis are typified as hard-headed straight talkers, with little > interest in spiritual affairs and some decidedly liberal attitudes for > Rokari. > Du Tumerines are characteristically arrogant and overbearing, but > sincerely religious. Their brand of Rokarism has an evangelistic > flavour which the more worldly Capratis find somewhat I'm glad to see I was playing my HtWw1 character correctly; I wonder what Steve Hatherley's excuse was? ;-) (Details suppressed by the Inquisition Subcommittee for Scenario Reusability.) > an ex-Aolian The only good kind, as far as I'm concerned. ;-) (Noises off, not unlike muffled blows.) Alex. --------------------- From: niwe@ppvku.ericsson.se (Nils Weinander) Subject: Secrets once more & some more Message-ID: <9409300957.AA08331@ppvku.ericsson.se> Date: 30 Sep 94 11:57:21 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6420 Nils Weinander writing I have a theory about the GL secret: Greg and Sandy really don't know what it is, but by making an aura of secrecy and a deep mystery around the subject, it becomes interesting to speculate about. When enough people grope around for ideas, someone ought to come up with an explanation that makes enough sense to be coopted into the official line. :-) _____ Martin writes about languages: > There may be some beings around who speak > Dorastan (hint: see Codex #1), which is more or less mutually > intelligible with Bilini--like Swedish and Norwegian are reputed > to be (I bet I hear from some Swedes or Norwegians on that one). Since you say so... swedish, danish and norwegian are largely mutually intelligible. For me, being swedish, spoken norwegian and written danish are very easy. The other way round is a bit tougher, but still no problem. To go a bit deeper: there are two groups of scandinavian languages: the western, including norwegian, icelandic and faroeic and the eastern, including swedish and danish. So swedish and danish are really very close, but the pronounciation is rather different. However, in writing the similarities are many. Norway was ruled by danish kings for some time, so there has been some danish influence on the norwegian language. However, this has nothing at all to do with Glorantha, so I better stop here. _____ Exigers and Promalti: Thanks for the info. Sandy: > The Promalti are entities composed of living fire. Kind of > like the Dehore. So, are they minions of Lodril? _____ /Nils W --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Sandian Stuff. Message-ID: <9409301016.AA24885@seram.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 30 Sep 94 10:16:14 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6421 Sandy deduces from my aghast statement: > >Bashed neeps are mashed turnip, of course. A traditional > >accompaniment to haggis that: > The intent, presumably, to make the haggis look good by > comparison? Kidding here. Makes Perfect Sense to me. Mind you, it doesn't work. > I now openly confess to liking mashed > turnips, at least when mixed with potatoes in the Welsh fashion. Bashed neeps are neat turnip, alas, though mashed potatoes are traditionally served too. I should also mention the other, absolutely _key_ ingredient of a successful Burns' Supper: get too pissed to notice how appalling the food is. > Teleos is not just a color-coded EU, if only because the children of > the various tribes only rarely happen to be the correct color. We thought of that one; why do you think said EU recently instituted (admittedly fairly notional) common citizenship? (Amounting to roughly that all the passports are the same naff colour.) There aren't yet too many cases of one nationality being born to another, but then, look at the Republic of Ireland's football (that's "soccer" to you USAns) team. > There's simply no point in > killing 'em, but at least they can hate 'em. Sounds much like European history of the last 50 years. > >I think I got the impression from someplace that there are > >more humans than uz in the [Kithori] tribe > I got this impression, too, but now I'm not sure where. Maybe > it's just because the tribe is about 50-50 troll/human, but most of > the trolls are just trollkin scum (who don't count). That's a point. Not only do they not count, they only won't be counted, by the typical visitor who shows during the day when the kinlets aren't let out. > >I can't think why there should be two distinct lots of > >darkness-worshipping humans in Heortland, most of whose > >residents are "otherwise accounted for". > Relics from the Only Old One's regime? Well, yeah, but why would they be separate? What's the nature/location/ relationship with first group of this alleged second lot? How do said second lot fit in with the Volsaxi, and/or the Hendriki? Someone with the merest modicum of an excuse for wanting to know should go interrogate Greg as to what he had in mind with the Black Arkat writeup, if we've squeezed all we can out of Sandy on the subject. > Cities are _exactly_ the same in Genertela and Pamaltela. It's just > that Genertelans think they are good, and Pamaltelans think they are > bad. Wotta stitch-up. Firstly, I think you're echoing the Doraddi view here, not the "Pamaltelan" view (if there were such a thing). And in the second place, I don't believe that a populous have hold a generally negative view about their lifestyle without it becoming self-fulfilling. > In my own campaign, the PCs got along much better in Fonrit > than they did in Jolar. [...] > The openness and generosity of the Doraddi confused and > frightened them. I've _read_ some of Sandy's scenarios: I someone was open and friendly to me in one of his games, I`d run, not walk, screaming from the room. ;-) > I think it's safe to say that "in Prax", there are converts > to Yelmalio from among the plains tribes, and if you visited Pavis, > the percentages of such converts might be reasonably high, as high as > CoP shows. Ditto for Orlanth, Humakt, & co. Just like you can find > plenty of Christians among the Japanese in big cities. I think I more-or-less agree with this. However, spirit cults being endemic in Prax, I'm sure that many "foreign" gods may be worshipped in this (Sandy would prolly say "false") mode, where they've been exposed to 'em. And elsewhere, there are doubtless many native spirits which a passing God Learner might reckon were "aspects" of some greater deity. Alex. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Other, non-Sandian Stuff. Message-ID: <9409301056.AA24983@seram.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 30 Sep 94 10:56:57 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6422 Michelle waxes Yelornan again: > 2) I was thinking that my Yelornans should probably become > Yelmalian initiates before they became Templars. I ask > because the six Yelmalians that I am working with are all > bucking to become Templars. I'd agreed except (I already did and) that for outlanders, as I presume said Yelornans are, and perhaps even for native women, you can't become a Yelmalio initiate _until_ you're accepted for the Templars. In case I'm obfusacting the issue here, I don't mean any Catch 22 situation, just that the two would happen essentially simultaneously. (Not true of male natives, of course, who can cool their heels in the militia for as long as they like, if not longer.) David Cheng, and some other chaps, post(s) various semi-convincing reasons for posting the daily to a newsgroup: [...] But none for posting to _that_ newsgroup. I don't understand the Technologically challenged people who download whole newsgroups onto their local machine, and then indulge in post hoc bitching about getting stuff they didn't want, any more than I do those people who reallyreallyreally want RQ by news, but in the spirit of humouring all factions, why not cross-post to a RQ and/or Daily-specific newsgroup? There should be no creation problems, since we can either a) create an alt group, or b) stitch up the creation vote in advance by soliciting the necessary support here in advance. Martin C. notices when the Glasgow netfeed was down: > And hey, can we talk about Gloranthan issues? Sunday's and > Monday's Dailies have been right thin on substance. Nuff said. ;-) On the other hand, Don't Complain About it, Just Do It, say I. (Martin at least Does It As Well, so that's not quite so bad...) Dave Cordes: > Question: Since Eurmal is the trickster and according to everything I've > read his followers are not bound to any laws. Nor are they protected by any > laws. Is Eurmal then bound by the great comprimise? 'Fraid so. After all, he was one of the people instrumental in bringing it about. On the bright side, he can still make crass and/or naff jokes about it. I say, I say, I say, how many Greater Gods does it take to change a lightbulb? Nick analogises: > This is like the way we > think all Storm Bulls worship the Block 'cos we've seen the ones who live > near to it. I'm pretty sure that as you trek westwards around the Barbarian > Belt, this particular myth dies out and is replaced by more important local > variations on the same theme. Baaaaad Nick. You mean "Uroxi", don't you? Go into the corner and say six "Hail Greg"s, and a couple of "Blessed Sandy"s for good measure. Nick's doubleplusungoodwise-phrased point is obviously Correct for extreme cases like Ralios, at least. But what about, say, Sartar? Are there any other major Urox sites or myths there, or do they have essentially the Praxian ones (Storm Walk mountain, the Block), with a different spin? Alex. --------------------- From: watson@csd.abdn.ac.uk (Colin Watson) Subject: Body, spirit; spirit, body - jus'likethat Message-ID: <199409301117.MAA05961@pelican.csd.abdn.ac.uk> Date: 30 Sep 94 13:17:42 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6423 ___________ Dave Cordes suggests how a Shaman might manage a resurrection but then discovers: > quote from the Magic Book page 28: "Only Divine > Magic can bring back an adventurer from the dead, a capability which greatly > encourages such characters to learn or convert to that approach to magic". > > Why???? What is the difference between what I detailed here and the > resurrection spell? Well, I think the Shaman-method falls down at point 9: > 9. Force the spirit back into the body, thus bringing the person back to > life. I wouldn't assume that simply combining a spirit with a body is going to result in a living being. Quite the opposite in fact. There are several enchantments available to Shamans and Sorcerers involving spirit-corpse combinations and they always result in some form of undeath. Not Life. If it was as simple as you make out then the recently-departed spirit might as well just hang around for a while to see if it's body gets healed and, if so, just hop right back into it of its own accord. But it doesn't work like that. Most spirits can't (don't?) posess corpses. (Those that can (do?) are called Ghouls.) So you would *at least* require some form of enchantment on the body to get the spirit to stick there. Even then, if you used Bind Ghost for example, you'd just have a corpse with a Ghost in it; not a living being; not something that could breathe and move around; nor even prevent its own body from decay. Nope, the closest a Shaman gets to resurrection is Create Zombie; and that does the spirit more harm than good. The trick with the Resurrection spell is that it restores the natural "binding enchantment" which allows things to live. Recovering the spirit is the easy part; it's the putting-the-spirit-back-into-the-body part which is special. Now, I wouldn't go as far as the Magic Book in saying that it's *impossible* for Shamans and Sorcerers to raise the dead; but I would say it's Very Hard. ___ CW. --------------------- From: SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 724-9843) Subject: rhigos; eldarad Message-ID: <01HHQ2DWSE74S9MEN2@MR.MGH.HARVARD.EDU> Date: 30 Sep 94 07:27:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6424 - In regard to the recent discussion of Porthomeka and Rhigos The introduction of westerners here makes since. While I was thinking about which westerners came here, I happened to spell Rhigos backwards, perhaps suggesting that those enigmatic people from Sog's City were involved. - Someone asked about the use or placement of Eldarad. Since I will admit that I actually own this, I came up with 2 uses for it once upon a time. One, that it could be broken up into bits and fit into Pavis (though certain pieces like the Immaril would be useless in this case). A second possibility would be to place it in Garsting since there is a river and sea nearby, Imperial agents could be explained, the Immaril could be wandering Balazarings, and Garsting is conveniently a blank land. Of course, I thought of that before the assorted Dara Happan pieces came out so this line of thought may be useless at this point. Harald --------------------- From: DevinC@aol.com Subject: Re:Women Templars, Eldarad, Sartarite Fauna Message-ID: <9409301446.tn30071@aol.com> Date: 30 Sep 94 18:46:49 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6425 Devin here: MOB writes: "There has been some discussion lately on whether the Sun Domers would let a female Yelornan join the Templars. The example of the female Light Lady Vega Goldbreath is often cited. Despite creating her long ago, David Hall and Nick Brooke have been trying to convince me of late that Vega is in fact, really a *Light Son* (seen "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", anyone?). Of course, that cannot be true because Light Sons are forbidden to disguise themselves as women... (see Yelmalio cult write-up in CoP or SC) ...but then, why have such a weird rule if there wasn't such a problem in the first place??? Food for thought..." In my campaign, a player (male...if that matters) wanted to play a female Yelmalian Sun Dome Templar. I warned him that thsi was highly unusual and that he would face prejudice and persecution and ridicule at every turn, but he likes playing fish out of water. Cori (that's her name) had to fight her way into a unit. She managed to convince a priest to initiate her into Yelmalio by way of suitable bribes from her father and favours owed (nuff said?). It took her quite a long time to be accepted as a templar. Not only did she have to prove her fighting ability by being not only equal but better than the males around her, but she was constantly held up to higher scrutiny and standards of Yelmalian observance (geasa, frex) than the men. She was shunned, made fun of, and the constant butt of jokes. Even when a PC Illuminated Yelmalian Acolyte transferred her into his file, she still had problems. But through various extremely brave (and risky) acts, she has managed to get some begrudging respect from the men of the unit, and in an upcoming scenario, where she saves most of the unit from certaind eath, she will finally get the respect she craves. In conclusion, I think it probably is possible in very rare cases for females to become Templars or higher (like Vega) but it is a road fraught with peril and hardships, akin to what many real life females experienced in trying to become policewomen or firewomen or to serve in the armed forces....only magnified in intensity due to the nature of the Yelmalian values. Kieth asks: "Although Eldarad: The Lost City ranks pretty low on the list of supllements if it is spiced up, it could make an interesting addition to a Glorantha campaign. The supplement suggests placing it north west of Peloria as a buffer state along with the Kingdom of war. This placement would be negate both the scarcity of items, travel, and most of all the stigma of being a "city dweller."" I found Eldarad not entirely objectionable and about on par with the Rubble in style and quality. I found that it worked best for me north of Charg off of the river there (Janube?). I foudnt hat the Ban could explain much of the history of Eldarad. Frex, Eldarad was a thriving city state along the Janube river valley before the Syndics Ban descended. During the Ban, the people left the city (or a plague came) and reverted to primitive way. As the ban thawed, people began reappearing. First came an intrepid Etyries trader going down river from the Lunar Empire. Later, Rathorelan tribes people found an overland route that had thawed away, but have kept that route secret. Finally, Can anyone tell me some examples of normal fauna found in Sartar? Examples I am mostly looking for are hunted animals and herd beasts. How much migration from Prax (if any) is there? Does one find Alticamelus herds or Bison herds wandering around Sartar? Regards, Devin devinc@aol.com --------------------- From: gerakkag@imap1.asu.edu Subject: Non-Divine Ressurrection Message-ID:Date: 30 Sep 94 06:17:54 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6426 Regarding Dave Cordes' comments on non-divine resurrection: I agree that shamans should be able to bring back the dead (but only after a struggle). For one thing, a lack of resurrection kind of torpedoes non-humans who don't worship/aren't affiliated with Chalanna Arroy (what do trolls do? Throw those dead bodies on the trollball field?). I usually let PCs/NPcs of the Shaman's tribe, clan, family, etc. chances to be resurrected -- I visualize part of the shaman's role as helping to "maintain" the part of the spirit plane in which the tribe's members go when they die. I.e., if a babboon warrior dies, the shaman can go to the tribe's "axis" on the spirit plane to find him and bring him back. This still makes divine magic more powerful -- shaman resurrection is generally longer (more stats lost), more dangerous, etc. when compared to the the D.I. or Chalanna Arroy "insta-life." Just out of curiousity -- how are other people handling resurrection among peoples where Chalanna Arroy is not generally popular? --------------------- From: 100102.3001@compuserve.com (Peter J. Whitelaw) Subject: Lord Vega Goldbreath? Message-ID: <940930214331_100102.3001_BHJ76-1@CompuServe.COM> Date: 30 Sep 94 21:43:31 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6428 Hi all, MOB says, referring to DH and NB's claim that Vega is not a she but a he, >Of course, that cannot be true because Light Sons are forbidden to disguise >themselves as women... >(see Yelmalio cult write-up in CoP or SC) > >...but then, why have such a weird rule if there wasn't such a problem in >the first place??? Strewth! >Food for thought... Especially for Invictus! What does he have to say on the matter? He must have been fairly gutted on his wedding night. So, the official line is that they divorced because his geas precluded him from loving any but Earth cultists... Oh joy! What a scandal. I sniff a scenario in this. Thank you. All the best, Peter