>I want the players to be able to use the Greeting every time they
meet other Orlanthi, but I don't necessarily want them to always be
able to communicate easily.<
Depends on how you see the quote referring to the greeting I guess, it may be as Nick says about following a common set of principles as opposed to an actual verbal formula.
I have always tended to play that the Greeting as something like the scene in Beowulf when our hero arrives at Herot - an oportunity for boasting of your deeds, prowess, and lineage and potentially establishing recognition from the assembled (see also Roderick's Saxons supplement for Pendragon which has material on lineage names and their recognition at recital) as much as a formula.
This would of course involve being able to communicate easily. But as I and the other narrators in the group have avoided raising the language issue - not a problem.
If you want the heroes to be able to do the Greeting, but have trouble communicating you might have problems, if you treat the Greeting similarly. In that case your Glorantha may need to have Orlanthi languages as mutually intelligible dialects. If you want your players to have trouble understanding the local lingo, add languages to your game.
I have a rule of thumb here: Canon is only important for authors writing for publication and so that your game can use published material without too many changes - otherwise bend Glorantha to the shape that you and your players want and don't worry about being contradicted by one paragraph somewhere if it makes your game better (he was probably lying to a Lunar scholar anyway).
Ian Cooper
Powered by hypermail