Re: Re: Childbirth

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:14:52 +0100


On Sun, Jul 18, 2004 at 03:20:40PM +0100, Stephen Tempest wrote:
> I thought that the "handicapping" was to bring Genertela's fertility
> down to the level of our own world? In the Green Age, crops sprang up
> all around you with no need for work, and ripe fruit just fell into
> your hand.

Bit of both, I think. The comparison I recall is specifically that Genertela is so much less 'naturally fertile' than _modern Pamaltela_, much less than the Green Age, and the clear implication was that without fertility magic of some sort, in most places at least, you'd get next to nothing in the way of agricultural crops. OTOH it does seem to be somewhat implied that Glorantha is often more fertile than you'd imagine given comparable 'mundane tech'. (c.f. the traditional debate about a bunch of Iron Age storm barbarians halfway up the proverbial alp, having a sky-high populations density.)

Mind you, some of this 'magic' is I think so ingrained into the fabric of society than the question is, if not meaningless, almost unanswerably hard. If you took a Heortling farmer, and told him "plough that field without using Barntar magic", he'd boggle. (And do and say numerous other things too choice to mention here.) The dividing line between magic and mundane is problematic as it a) isn't a line, and b) doesn't divide.

> So human fertility should also be much the same as ours.

This for me seems very likely. I can more easily imagine it varying in mythically/magically different ways, than I can it having some radically different starting point.

Cheers,
Alex.

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