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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 01 Nov 1994, part 3
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From: erisie@utu.fi (Sven *Erik Sievrin)
Subject: Re: Mike's Esrolia notes
Message-ID:
Date: 1 Nov 94 00:12:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6810
I have already commented on Mike's ideas in a letter to Mike, but he
might be right that it should be shared with other readers, for whatever
it is worth:
> > ---------------------
>
> From: Mike.Dickison@vuw.ac.nz
> Subject: Lots on Esrolia
> Message-ID: <199410290811.AA00348@rata.vuw.ac.nz>
> Date: 30 Oct 94 09:11:25 GMT
> X-RQ-ID: 6783
>
> Henk - Please forward this lot.
>
> This is some material on Esrolia that grew out of correspondence I'm having
> with Erik. Perhaps other Daily reader could say what they think.
>
> #### Weather ####
>
> I think Esrolian weather must be ideally suited for grain production; if
> anywhere in Glorantha has to be an ideal granery, this should be it. More
> and more I like Nick's Egyptian flavour, with Egypt as the breadbasket of
> the Mediterranean. But please could we not fall into the trap of doing
> something "because the Egyptians did it"? I really don't like the extreme
> Earth-analogues in some Gloranthan writing. At times people seem to be
> searching furiously for the "real" identity of Ignorance, Carmania and so
> on. I must admit my face fell when I got Genertela and saw the pictures of
> a Hun, Knight, Chinese, Roman, and so on. So I'd like Esrolia to have hot
> summers with heavy rainfall rather than rivers flooding!
>
I think of Esrolia as a mix of a lot of earthly things..... I like
irrigation merely because of the systems needed - I like a landscape
crisscrossed with ditches and divers pumps. But Esrolia is not=Egypt, you
are right.
> #### Running Amok #### >
> I was reading about emotions in different cultures, and came across the
> Malay work amok, used in English in the concept of "running amok". I think
> that sometimes men in Esrolia might crack under the strain of living in a
> maternal, benign, peaceful society and go wacko down the street with a big
> axe before being chopped into little twitching chunks by the Avenging
> Sisters. No doubt the locals shake their heads and say the poor fellow
> "caught the wildfire".
>
I have a comment on this (I like it), but to do it correctly I need to
check some references..... Back later on that... But for now, I bet all
his neighbours (and his wife) say "I'd never know... He was such I a
nice, quiet man....."
> This issue arose from our discussion on what to do with Lodril. I suggested
> he's the patron of the Hearth minders, men who keep the oven soked, baked
> bread and bricks, burn cow dung and so on. The Mahome and Gustbran aspects,
> with the unreliable Oakfed aspect carefully purged.
Agreed....
>
> #### Hairy Marching Militia ####
>
> I think only a minority of the army is professional. Sandy points out that
> their "counters won't stack", but some people seem to have interpreted this
> because they make men less productive. The different religious factions in
> the Earth Goddesses are a different story.
You bet!
>
> Secondly, even if you do have religious rivalry, I don't think the standing
> army would be big enough for there to be very many different fighting
> guilds or brotherhoods. The women don't WANT lots of armed men lounging
> around. Just a few to stand around and look nice in your villa, thanks. I
> suspect that the possession of weapons by citizens is strictly regulated or
> even banned. In my opinion, probably only Humakt and maybe Yelmalio
> brotherhoods are actually trained warriors, and these are pretty useless as
> we've established.
And the Humakti, if I remember our ideas right, are mostly part of the
queens private armies, best suited to make "city commando attacks" and to
counter such. Not to mention them being totally despised by the majority
of the population....>
> I think, after Nick Brooke, that most of the Esrolian army is rabble. Male
Agree, but I think this is also because Esrolians despise soldiery, the
majority, in any case. I think the only regular army are "Maran Gor"
female warriors, being not too many and having very small resources>
> I think we find ourselves writing lots on men and how they work, are
> controlled, and so on. But men are minor players in Esrolia. As Sandy put
> it:
>
> >>Anyway, Esrolia is not some feminazi cartoon, by any means.
> >
> > This is quite true. All I will claim is that if a man from
> >Heortland or Tanisor came to visit, he would leave with the opinion
> >that men were heartily oppressed. This would be mirrored by the
> >horror that an Esrolit woman would feel, should she visit a
> >traditional Orlanthi area.
>
> So a good rule of thumb is that women in Esrolia are as important and
> influential as men are in Heortland, and vice versa for men. So:
>
> How many players, beginning a campaign in Heortland, would automatically
> choose female characters?
About one in five in my usual gaming group - which is ALL-MALE! They
would do this in most campaigns, and IMHO females are not that oppressed
in Heortland (The Esrolians may have different ideas), not enough for me
to say to that player who wishes a female character: "No, ther's NO
chance in the WORLD you would be an "adventurer"". There is even less
chance I would do it if a FEMALE player asked for it. Similarily, in the
campaign I am preparing this for, there will be 3 male players and I
would be very surprised if NONE of them played a male character. So I
have to think beforehand on "what can men do?">
> How many women have you heard about that have featured or are featuring in
> Heortland events?
>
> In an adventure in Heortland involving, say, a trade caravan, an ambush,
> dealing with a local village leader, and equipping a boat to travel to
> Handra, how many women NPCs would be involved?
>
> Now reverse all those questions for Esrolia. The answers should be about
> the same.
A, but I think this is due to that we are male-centered normally, there
ought to be more active females in the rest of the world.
If you are merely out to portray a society were men are extremely
unimportant, you may do that as well by showing a lot of subservient men,
instead of showing NO men. In any campaign I have played there is a lot
of female NPC's, it is only that they are not LEADING NPCs, because of
the patriarchic societies portrayed (and the male-centered players and GMs)>
> I think we tend to unconsciously grant men too much importance, being
> mostly men on the Daily and living in moderately patriarchal countries
> (though we're far from sexixt pigs, as the well-considered debate generated
> by Michelle Ringo's complaint a few months ago showed). In the last
> question, I found myself thinking "Oh, but the traders will be Argan Argar
> men, and the sailor Dormal men, and so on". But if that's so, who's keeping
> house? Women seemed to have been kept inside pretty efficiently in Ancient
> Greece and the Middle Ages,
I do not agree. Only a rich man can keep his women inside, doing only
housework - at least in pre-industrial times. Greek matrons showed
themselves very little, yes, but not the wives of Greek farmers. If you
are a carpenter's husband, she will have you do things in her workshop,
and so on.
and that was when you could only have one wife
> at a time! Any woman of influence will want to have several husbands,
but only women of influence will afford more than one!
and
> they will probably be homebodies while she's off travelling, meeting with
> nobles, on pilgrimages, and so on. So perhaps most traders in Esrolia are
> women, most sailors and so forth.
Traders: almost no males. Sailors:since Dormal himself was male, and
sailing being a pretty international business, I imagine fifty-fifty or
so on vessels owned by Esrolians - but I also imagine the men employed
will be foreigners, largely Rightarm Islanders (I,ll return to them on a
later daily). I think there is a large amount of people of non-Esrolian
ancestry in Esrolia. almost all in Nochet, and almost all coloured by
their home cultures.
The will be no shortage of single women,
> what with this competition for husbands, and no societal restrictions on
> tavelling and owning weapons or a ship. Sure, some men can enter these
> professions too, but only through self-regulating brotherhoods. And sure,
> some professions might be designated menial "men's work", like soldiering,
> so the mirror image isn't perfect (though things should balance out - so if
> men keep one "traditional" male job, women should keep one "traditional"
> female one - childrearing is an obvious one; Esrolian society is probably
> organised for the benefit of those having kids.)
I'm not sure if they sjould "balance out" exactly, but then we may have
different goals when creating our campaigns - which is perfectly alright.
Owning weapons: I think any woman, except those who has forsworn their
femininity (like the Avenging Sisters policeforce or the Earthshakers
military) who train themselves in fighting or associates with weapons in
any manner will be despised in the same way as your average Dara Happan
or Seshnelan would despise a fellow who did the dishes, or , horrors,
wiped the poo off his baby.
Kids:What fighting is to all those other violent, nasty male societies
(glorious, honorable, the stuff of sagas) childbearing and -rearing
surely are to the Esrolians. I imagine it is like this: when a woman has
a child, she gives her husband(s) more responsibility for the economic
matters, unless she is idependently rich - I am talking about those
artisans, farmers, merchants and so on. She will still make all
decisions, but leave the work to the man. Yes, like men in a
patriarchal society does when they leave to go to war - they leave some
things to their women. Again, noblewomen will be different. They have
subordinates who take care of that, and most of THEIR weak flower
husbands cannot do anything useful anyway, except looking nice.
>
> I guess all I'm saying is that most of what we write should be about, and
> most of the Esrolian PCs and NPCs encountered should be, women.
>
> Incidentally, nobody seems to agree on whether it's Esrolian, Esrolite, or
> Esrolit. Surely the former; cf Peloria/n, Carmania/n, not Pelorite or
> Carmanit.
>
Esrolian, IMO.
And some thoughts on Esrolian society, my version:
Esrolians have a similar structure to other Theyalan cultures: families
gather in clans who gather in "tribes" (a more "civilised" word, please,
help me) who gather to form the queendom.
All clans/tribes consider themselves descended from daughters of Esrola,
goddess of the land itself, and therefore has the right to use it, the
Land-Right. Each clan has a piece, and usually one clan makes up a
village, two to four clans a town or smaller city. The one who decides
how the earth should be used is the Clanmistress, the most direct
descendant of the clan ancestress (eldest daughter, and so forth). In effect
she owns all land, including
all buildings, and other clansmembers, all her relatives, only either
"rent" them or work them for her. In turn, she has a certain
responsibility to them, eg if one of them has a kid but no husband, they
receive help so the kid can be raised properly.
A tribe consist of a group of clans which live in the same geographical
area. One of the clans is the royal clan; its clanmistress is Queen of
the tribe, and work for the tribe as the Clanmistress for the clan.
I have no idea how many tribes there are, but I
think they are much larger than Sartarite or Heortlander tribes, and
I think Nochet is a Queendom of her own, either run directly by the High
Queen, or by some special noble - a Grand Mayoress, or whatever.
The High Queen rules all Esrolia, and comes from the High Royal clan,
descended from Esrola's oldest daughter.
Clan and tribe feuds: they exist, but are of a totally different kind
than those of their barbarian neighbours. Among clans, almost all
competition is verbal, social or economic - the exceptions being
occasional street brawls between the boys of different clans, especially
along tribal borders (Which their mothers strongly disapprove of, but
they all blame it on those nasty, hairy boys of the Yrdinan clan who are
pure barbarians, since their mothers are totally incompetent at raising
and educating them, and their fathers are as barbaric, and probably has
not a single drop of blod of Esrola's in their bodies).
Among tribes, they still consist of extreme economic and social
bickering, but this is sometimes augmented by outright attacks on the
royals themselves - this happens often enough for each queen to keep a
bodyguard of mostly MALE mercenaries, since they are not connected to the
Earth cults and thus not to the families. Foreigners and Esrolian Humakti
(a weird bunch if their ever was one) are preferred. These may, as an
aside, be useful to perform those occasional attacks on your enemy.
And about males, although this ought to be mostly about females: no man
is a true citizen, just as children and slaves. A man is always
subservient to a woman - his wife, mother or sister. They may only take
any action if their mistress allows it. This means that those bodyguards,
and all others without family ties to an Esrolian, must be "adopted" by
an Esrolian woman. I fancy a man even cannot be accused of any crimes,
since his woman is responsible - so if Palo catches the wildfire, he will
be cut down by the Avenging Sisters AND his wife will be accused of multiple
womanslaughter.
The last thing makes me think of another thing: to put yourself into an
Esrolian point of view, change all male references to female and vice
versa. I bet Esrolian for man means "dimunitive woman". Or "un-woman".
I have lots more to say about Esrolia - I have taken a deep dip into the
Earth worship, and likes the Four Earth Corners-concept of Nick so much I
have
used it (but it probably is totally different from yours, Nick - we'll see).
I also have a long comment on spirit magic, but that will have to wait.
The Real World Calls.
For now on, keep coming with those ideas, comments and that criticism. I
cant take it, but dont give a sh-t about that. I need it.
Erik
PS: Have you any weird, wonderful ideas for City of Wonders? They need
not be True Stafford or any od that, since their appearantly is very
little that has been said. Weird things used in your campaigns in other
places, even non-Gloranthan, would be much appreciated. DS
--
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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Re: ???
Message-ID: <9410312016.AA10598@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 31 Oct 94 04:18:07 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6811
Colin W.:
>What I was getting at in my original post is that spirits should be
>bound differently; not just because of what they do, but because of
>what they *are*
Ah. Now I understand. Okay, I agree wholeheartedly.
Especially with your comment that sylphs and salamanders don't use
the same binding enchantments. Or that perhaps wraiths and ghosts are
more alike than different, because they're both just the remains of
people.
>Anyway, Sandy, what do you consider Power and Intellect spirits to
>be? Are they spirits of things which were once alive? Or are they
>indigenous denizens of the spirit world?
In my opinion, Power and Intellect spirits of the classic
variety are relics of the Godtime, and have never really lived.
Perhaps they are shattered fragments of fetches ripped from shamans
killed by the Bad Man. Perhaps they are the part of the soul that
sorcerers and mystics excise (the "Bad part", as they put it).
Perhaps they are all that is left of dwarfs after death. Perhaps they
have a number of different sources.
In my campaign in Pamaltela, the players happened into an
area of land that had remained intact since the Great Darkness, never
having been exploited or disturbed. The shaman in the party noted the
existence of a number of statless entities -- no POW, no INT, no
nothing; just a pool of magic points. He started using these
convenient MP-pools for casting his spells, wondering all the while
why such a handy entity wasn't known elsewhere in Glorantha. Then it
hit him -- they DID exist elsewhere, but have all been used up. After
that he treated them with a little more respect. (But not much.)
Kevin Rose:
>The comment about the female junior leadership needing to be fairly
>robust physically was not to prevent the troops from mutining, it
>was to allow them to survive contact with the enemy.
Ah. Sorry. Hmm. This may depend on what exactly a "junior
officer" consists of. In a modern army, there are lieutenants
commanding as few as 30 men, but the lowest-order Roman officer seems
to have been over 100, and he was not expected to lead an independent
command. The women in a typical Esrolian unit may all be non-combat
commanders -- at least in the modern times (like the American Civil
War, in which I've done way too much reading), respect for one's
commanders is not so much a matter of their personal prowess, but
their courage. U.S. Grant, for instance, never led a charge sword in
hand (though other generals of similar rank did), but his men
respected him because of his undoubted courage when fired on.
I predict that the female officers of the Esrolit army are
generally quite high-ranking -- the equivalents of majors or colonels
-- and that they are encouraged to control their ranking (male) NCOs
by means of sexual favors, much as the ancient Spartans or the Theban
Sacred Band encouraged sexual friendships among their soldiers to
unify them.
I also predict that the female officers are required to show
bravery, but not necessarily to fight personally. While women's
courage is not in question, their efficacy in hand-to-hand combat
with males might be. I see no evidence that the Esrolit society
encourages its women to be any more war-like than our own, despite
their emancipated status. I suspect that little Esrolit boys play
with war toys, and Esrolit girls do not.
Elias:
>First: Does anybody know why giants send (or sent, anyway) their
>babies down the river in cradles? I would expect most of the
>cradles to go more or less straight down Magasta's Pool.
Okay. First off, there are more than one type of Giant in
Glorantha. The standard run of the mill giant is a slobbering monster
who eats people. But there are also highly intelligent magic giants
-- such as Gonn Orta of Griffin Mountain fame. And there's also
Jolanti and all sorts of other things.
Only one type of giant sends its kids down the River of
Cradles -- the magic "good" giants from the Rockwoods. And yes, the
kids go down Magasta's Pool. They're supposed to -- in the
underworld, they have an extended childhood and adolescence, learning
many important giantish things before they return to the surface
world again.
>Second: What kind of wonderful things do these apparently
>technically and magically unsophisticated people put in these
>cradles that made it worthwhile to set up two separate outposts just
>to capture them? Where do they get them from? Is there a powerful
>and advanced giant civilization somewhere that we have never heard
>about?
To answer your three questions in order.
First: you name it, it was there. The Mint almost certainly
came off a giant cradle. Other goodies of notable majesty did the
same.
Second: they made them, or they brought them with them from
the underworld or their travels, or they traded for them with other
super-powerful entities.
Third: Yes, but it consists of a few dozen scattered
individuals spread across Genertela, who contact each other maybe
once a decade. That's all it takes, for giants, considering that
they've been alive since well before the Dawn.
Matt
>using the "Dorastor Land of Doom" supplement and was wondering if
>there is any more information published or on the net about the
>Tower of Lead, and Dorastor artifacts.
Not published. What would you like to know? I wrote the
supplement, together with maps of the Tower of Lead, etc., and
perhaps can save the day.
Paul Pofandt:
>What is there to stop a sorcerer teaching some form of spirit a
>sorcery spell and then commanding it to practice the spell
>constantly.
Nothing. All my sorcerers (PC and NPC) do this. I don't think
this is a particular crock because it means that in "only" a couple
of years, you can get your magic spirit to be fairly adequate in one
(1) sorcery spell. Whereas you could pack his brain full of spirit
magic in a week or two.
>How is it [sorcery] taught. Where does it come from?
It is taught in schools -- Colleges is what they're usually
called. It doesn't "come from" anywhere -- it is part of the way the
world works, and is a sort of side-effect of the world being magical.
Anyone who learned the necessary rites and patterns could use
sorcery, though some people would be more competent than others.
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